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Agar explains decision to leave Eastmond out as forward comes in for big praise

Richard Agar’s side may have won 28-22, but the Leeds boss wasn’t happy with the way the Rhinos conceded length-of-the-field tries.

“I think my overriding thoughts are is it’s round one – I think we’ve got plenty to build off and plenty to work on,” Agar said.

“We looked dangerous in attack and we look like we’ve got points in us. When we look at the overall picture, the two length-of-the-field tries we can be disappointed about because that had a lot of influence in that game.

“I’m happy we came from behind and that we closed out a close game in round one.”

Agar was happy with how debutant Zane Tetevano went.

“He was solid; we had to rest him for a week because of his hamstring issue around the huddersfield game.

“He hasn’t had an easy prep into the game, but he’ll get used to the different style soon.”

The Leeds coach was also happy with how Matt Prior and especially Cameron Smith performed in tough periods of the game.

“Matty Prior put in another tremendous shift and Cameron Smith had a terrific impact for our middles.

“We didn’t put him on until half an hour to go, but I thought the way he took charge of our middles and how commanding he was, the direction he gave us was superb.

“Jack Broadbent did a lot of great things too and had to try and live with Bill Tupou and Tom Johnstone – he made some terrific runs and played some big hands in defence.”

New signing Kyle Eastmond didn’t play, but Agar spoke about how this is now just a time issue more than anything after spending so long out of the game.

“It’s a time thing now, he’s not played any rugby for six or seven months, so apart from getting him match conditioned we’ve got to get him right for our team and our calls.

“We didn’t want to dump him in a team whilst he’s not quite physically there.

“Its not been an easy build up so we just want Kyle to be fully ready to go when he gets in.”

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